Hoboken was considered part of the port of new York and all immigrant
arrivals to those docks were inspected by New York port inspectors. As
others have said, first and second class passengers were discharged on the
docks at Hoboken while steerage passengers were ferried to Ellis Island and
inspected there. Following inspection they were returned to the docks in New
Jersey where those who were going elsewhere board their respective trains.

Similarly those immigrant ships which sailed up the Delaware River to
Camden, New Jersey, were considered part of the port of Philadelphia.

Passenger lists for Hoboken are filed under the port of New York, and those
for Camden, New Jersey, under the port of Philadelphia. Further south in the
Chesapeake, most immigrant passenger lists for Delaware and small ports in
the Chesapeake are filed with Baltimore arrivals. Similar situations occur
on the West Coast, New England and the Southern coast. The inspectors worked
for the major port and the manifests were collected in a central place for
many small ports.

Having said that, there are some smaller ports for which separate files are
available, and, as mentioned by someone previously, there is that one set of
records for several miscellaneous East Coast and Florida ports contained in
a single microfilm publication. All passenger lists on the various Web sites
for Immigration lists (those required by the immigration laws beginning in
1891) have been scanned from National Archives microfilm publications in
Record Group 85 and are listed in the NARA microfilm online catalog; go to
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.archives.gov/genealogy">www.archives.gov/genealogy</a>, click on the link for the microfilm catalog. To
see and search for all passenger lists available, do an advanced search for
RG 85. (Note: the direct link for the catalog is very long and won't fit on
a single line. And you don't have to order anything to look at the catalog.)

Gladys

Gladys Friedman Paulin, CG

Winter Springs, FL

________________________________________________

CG, Certified Genealogist, is a service mark of the Board for Certification
of Genealogists and is used under license by Board-certified persons who
meet program standards and periodic rigorous evaluations.